Kittster, your story is almost identical to many others I've read in the paleo community. Chronic, mystery illnesses and conditions that defy diagnosis suddenly disappear when certain triggers are removed from the diet. My uneducated guess is some form of non-celiac gluten sensitivity or a wheat allergy. The medical community is slowly waking up to the reality that a large swath of the human population cannot tolerate wheat but aren't technically celiac.

I would've also suggested an intolerance to A1 beta-casein but you said that you're doing fine with dairy.

I agree on most of your points but my view is that eating less in not the solution alone. You need to eat less (i.e. lower your caloric input) but you also need to eat the right stuff at the same time. 500 gram of cauliflower is a much better choice than 50 gram of cake as the caloric input is less......just an example though so don't hold me up on the numbers. You know what I mean.

I do. But you'll still lose more weight, albeit potentially less healthily, by eating 100Kcals worth of cake than 1000Kcals of cauliflower.

I do. But you'll still lose more weight, albeit potentially less healthily, by eating 100Kcals worth of cake than 1000Kcals of cauliflower.

I think the main difference is that if you ate 500g of cauliflower and then someone offered you some more, you'd probably say no but if you ate 50g of cake and someone offered you another slice, you'd probably say yes.

(If you ate 500g of cauliflower you probably wouldn't feel like eating the cake afterwards, either or anything else for that matter).

Kittster, your story is almost identical to many others I've read in the paleo community. Chronic, mystery illnesses and conditions that defy diagnosis suddenly disappear when certain triggers are removed from the diet. My uneducated guess is some form of non-celiac gluten sensitivity or a wheat allergy. The medical community is slowly waking up to the reality that a large swath of the human population cannot tolerate wheat but aren't technically celiac.

I would've also suggested an intolerance to A1 beta-casein but you said that you're doing fine with dairy.

Her story isn't just identical to many you've heard in the paleo community, but also the atkins community, and the weight watchers community, and the low fat community. Also the zone, south beach, formula, raw food, master cleanse and juicer communities. Every fad diet had adherents who swear by it, Paleo is no different. (By the way, Legumes are technically a no-go)

Of course you're going to feel better if you stop drinking Red Bull and sugar and lose weight. Cutting sugary and processed foods will make anyone feel better. As a result, your cholestorol will also go down. This is akin to wearing pink earmuffs while eating healthy, and then running around telling everyone how pink earmuffs changed your life.

Again, the science just isn't there. This isn't how early man ate. They didn't eat grass fed free range beef twice a day and paleo cheesecake and coconut water. They ate grains, nuts, beans, and yes, meat, but generally in far smaller amounts and already dead things. Tools were developed not so they could hunt, but so they could crack open bones and eat high fat marrow that larger predators had to leave behind. They didn't live long enough to develop the diseases that kill us today.

Sure, there are people that have wheat allergies, but to suggest that the entirety of humanity has an intolerance to wheat and just didn't notice it for thousands of years is a bit of a stretch. See countries like France (and Switzerland for that matter) where bread and dairy are consumed with abandon, and heart disease and obesity rates are comparatively low.

Paleo has become a fad and an industry, and will be replaced by another trendy diet in a few years. This is just the latest example of America's schizophrenic relationship with food that takes the rest of the world by storm.

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I do. But you'll still lose more weight, albeit potentially less healthily, by eating 100Kcals worth of cake than 1000Kcals of cauliflower.

The problem with the "calories-in/calories-out" model is that it doesn't take into account the food's impact on metabolism, the impact on satiety, or how effectively the body can store the excess as fat. On the other side of the equation, the model doesn't really account for increased physical activity driving up hunger at a nearly 1:1 ratio (burn 400 calories on a run; proceed to eat 400 more calories over the next two days).

So yeah, the law of thermodynamics technically applies but it doesn't capture what's actually happening and the information isn't very actionable.

Principia - I totally agree, it is a fad for some, an excuse to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day. I really have tried every other diet, most made me lose weight, but I felt miserable. I hated Atkins because I like fruit and veg. I hated the popular idea of counting food, it is all too obsessive. I consider paleo or primal an easy label to visualise a concept that goes beyond diet.

I don't believe that one size fits all but I encourage people to try on different sizes and styles that can be maintained and contain plenty of nutrients. If wheat is not an issue for you, great, but when I have pasta for dinner, I wake up with a puffy, squished face, sometimes even a headache. I would wake up in the night feeling nauseous, possible because my blood sugar was going bananas.

I don't make all those paleo desserts, except snack bars from the almonds I have left over from making almond milk. My one vice is daaaark chocolate. But one square, not the whole bar. I feel in control without being controlled by it. I have been able to reduce my daily pill popping by a quarter. Like I said, I tried other variants of healthy and nothing had this effect. I realise that we are far too many people on the planet for us all to eat this way but that's not what I think should happen anyway - a friend of mine went veggie last year and he feels amazing. I was practically veggie and felt rubbish, even when I laid off the sugar. Find what works for you.

Every fad diet had adherents who swear by it, Paleo is no different. (By the way, Legumes are technically a no-go)

At what point is a diet no longer a fad? Does it need to be around for 10 years to gain legitimacy? 50?

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Of course you're going to feel better if you stop drinking Red Bull and sugar and lose weight. Cutting sugary and processed foods will make anyone feel better. As a result, your cholestorol will also go down. This is akin to wearing a pink earmuffs while eating healthy, and then running around telling everyone how pink earmuffs changed your life.

Bad analogy. The earmuffs are a red herring but cutting sugary and processed foods are at the core of paleo and a host of other "fad" diet programs.

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Again, the science just isn't there. This isn't how early man ate.

Early man ate in many different ways depending on the season and where he lived. We don't know the specifics but we have some ideas. I don't think anyone is claiming that paleo precisely replicates a caveman's diet. We do know that he didn't eat baked goods made from wheat flour, he didn't consume solvent-refined seed oils, and he didn't eat 75lbs of sugar per year. That's a pretty good start, IMHO.

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They didn't live long enough to develop the diseases that kill us today.

We're seeing metabolic syndrome and even full T2 diabetes in prepubescent children these days. Something not found in any primitive culture. As for them not living long enough, it's true that the average lifespan in these populations was fairly short but the individuals who did make it to old age tended to be free of the diseases that plague us modern humans in our old age. If an Inuit in the 1950's had a heart attack, it would often be written up in a medical journal simply because it was so exceedingly rare.

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Sure, there are people that have wheat allergies, but to suggest that the entirety of humanity has an intolerance to wheat and just didn't notice it for thousands of years is a bit of a stretch.

Not a stretch. There's a position, fringe but gaining credibility, that wheat is a chronic poison that is not suitable for human consumption.

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See countries like France (and Switzerland for that matter) where bread and dairy are consumed with abandon, and heart disease and obesity rates are comparatively low.

There's more involved than just wheat and bread. Look at the macronutrient ratios. I'd argue that their relatively low obesity rates would be even lower without the heavy wheat consumption.

I agree wholeheartedly. I too went Vegetarian for a while and though my heart was in it, I was literally falling asleep all the time and I felt much worse, I just didn't want to have to micromanage my food intake when eating a varied and healthy diet with moderate amounts of meat made me feel just fine.

I think it's great that you eat things like chocolate and beans too. I think restriction diets are doomed for failure and downright tragic. Life is far too short to deprive oneself of the occasional whatever it it may be.

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To the OP: I have no specific recommendation for a nutritionist, but when you do find one, opt for trying various strategies and "cycling" through them, so that you know what works specifically for you. In other words, do not settle for appointments every three months or for a generic meal plan, you have to fine-tune your nutrition on a frequent basis. You should also write down any changes you observe and give feedback to the nutritionist. Of course, frequent visits could end up being expensive and time-consuming. Perhaps getting a book (e.g. Paleo for Beginners: Essentials to Get Started) would be more affordable and would allow you to experiment a bit. Just like Kittster wrote, be your own dietitian.

Disclaimer: I have never had personal experience with a nutritionist, this advice comes from observing my boyfriend who is evolving into a fitness maniac.

Most food intolerances cause vomiting and diarrhoea and with the vomiting at least, the food is coming back up before it has been absorbed.

This is precisely why wheat has been given an automatic free pass by pretty much everyone. A celiac rapidly develops problems -- they are clearly intolerant. Since everyone else eats bread and feels fine, they assume that an intolerance isn't possible. 20 years later, after slowly developing a health condition (that tends to be autoimmune related), they cut the wheat and the condition improves dramatically if not disappears outright within 2-4 weeks. Is that still a food tolerance problem? I'd argue that it is.

Treating ulcers with antibiotics was a fad for 30 years. Until it wasn't. Blaming cervical cancer on HPV was preposterous, too. Until it wasn't.

Ridiculous comparisons. Quite apart from the fact that we're talking about fad diets here, the two examples you use were new medical ideas, and were shown to be effective before being adopted. Where was the 'fad' before that?

The point (which you missed) is that the medical community can be very slow to pick up on new concepts and ideas; ulcers, cancer, nutrition, whatever.

Even worse, we have commercial interests (drug companies and food companies) actively promoting campaigns of disinformation. Add regulatory capture to the mix and you can see how we got to where we are today.

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Well, of course we could just ignore the combined knowledge of the world's medical professionals and instead choose to base our lifestyles on a few things we read on the internet.

If a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine is made freely available on the Internet, does it become invalid?

Besides, the world's medical professionals aren't on the same page. A growing number of them are actively resisting the status quo and are promoting nutrition concepts that contradict conventional wisdom.

The point (which you missed) is that the medical community can be very slow to pick up on new concepts and ideas; ulcers, cancer, nutrition, whatever.

I didn't miss anything. Comparing information on what constitutes a 'fad diet' to breakthroughs in medical treatment is ridiculous. Neither of the examples you chose demonstrated a reluctance on the part of anybody to 'pick up' on new concepts. Once the links had been demonstrated they were accepted quite quickly, in the normal way these things happen. Published results, peer review, discussion, consensus.

Feel free to groan me again for pointing it out, but it won't change anything.